In order to anesthetize infants, particularly babies, an anesthesia mask for covering the infant's face (i.e., nose and mouth) is often used. Thus, during administration of the anesthetic, such masks are continuously pressed against the child's face by a nurse in order to maintain such sealed contact. Such a mask is therefore often seen by the child as a threat due to perceived difficulty in breathing through the nose while utilizing the mask. This disturbs the child so that anesthetizing becomes much more difficult.
An anesthesia administering device is known from EP-A-0 085 639 which includes a test-shaped suction piece with which the child can suck and thus draw a nozzle opening for the anesthesia gas towards himself. In this case, the nozzle is formed on the outside of the teat, and positioned in front of the infant's nose. The gas can thus be partially inhaled by the child, although the majority of the gas will flow out to the surrounding air. This known device is intended to achieve a first phase of anesthetizing, and then thereafter a normal anesthesia mask can be connected and placed over the infant's face for subsequent anesthetizing (see page 4, lines 26-32; page 5, lines 1 and 2 of the EP publication).
An object of the present invention is to provide an anesthesia mask for infants which the child will happily accept so as to achieve a gradual sealing contact of the outer peripheral edge of the bowl-shaped wall of the mask against the face of the child around the nose and mouth so as to prevent leakage of anesthesia gas around the mask and to thereby obtain complete anesthesia with one single pass.